


feed each other and call it love

by ohjustpeachy



Series: Tony Stark Bingo Fills [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24922471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohjustpeachy/pseuds/ohjustpeachy
Summary: Steve works late, Tony builds a robot, and they show their feelings the only way they know how: through food.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Tony Stark Bingo Fills [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601260
Comments: 16
Kudos: 138
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	feed each other and call it love

**Author's Note:**

> This fills the steve/tony (S1) square on my tony stark bingo card (#3049)!

The first time it happens it’s by accident. Tony is still awake around one in the morning, working on one of his projects for his Robotics class. At least, the class had inspired his current project. He wasn’t technically turning it in for a grade. It’s a passion project, really, but that’s besides the point. The first time Steve came stumbling in from his shift at the diner downtown, he’s a sight to be seen. His hair is matted down from wearing the (hilarious, adorable) visor all day, and his eyes look ready to close the second his head hits a pillow.

“God, how long did you work today?” Tony asks, looking up at Steve from his spot on the floor. His tools and rogue parts are scattered around him, and he uses a foot to push them aside to make room for Steve beside him. “Have a seat,” he offers, gesturing widely. It’s not ideal, sitting on the floor with a bunch of spare parts, but Steve looks like just about anything would do.

With a nod and a soft grunt, Steve plops down next to him. “What’re you working on?”

“Ah, ah, I asked first, Mr. Rogers.”

“Close to ten hours. Someone called out and it got nuts when some high school drama club came in. A million sodas and milkshakes for unattended kids doesn’t add up to a big tip, but at least they were funny.”

“Ten? That’s longer than I’ve been working on DUM-E, here.”

“Dummy?” Steve frowns.

“He’s a bot. Ideally he’ll be the one keeping this place clean once I’m done with him.”

“Are you so desperate not to do the dishes?” Steve smiles tiredly. The chores were an uphill battle for both of them.

“Yes, Steven, I am. In fact, here. Have a slice of pizza.” Tony scoots over some more, revealing a box of pizza and a few paper plates. “No dishes required.”

“God, please, I’m starving,” Steve says, reaching around Tony and grabbing two slices. They’re lukewarm, Tony had ordered it a while ago now, but Steve doesn’t seem to notice.

“You work at a diner, one might think you would...eat there,” Tony says after Steve manages to down a whole slice in two bites.

“I pick at things here and there,” Steve says with a shrug. “But by the time I’m done I just wanna get out of there.”

“Makes sense,” Tony agrees, watching as Steve puts the plate down beside him on the floor and leans his head back against the couch behind him.

“Hey,” Tony pokes him. “You shouldn’t stay down here. Your neck’s gonna hate you in the morning, Steve, you need to go to bed.”

Steve doesn’t open his eyes as he shrugs. “S’okay. M’good here,” he mumbles.

“Feed him and he goes right to sleep. You’re like a toddler, Rogers, you know that? Or an old man, maybe. Dinner then straight to bed.” But Tony’s already lowering his voice, putting his screwdriver down, and shuffling himself over as Steve tips his head down onto Tony’s shoulder, sound asleep.

*

The next time Steve goes to work, he’s halfway out the door before Tony thinks to ask. “Hey,” he calls, and laughs at the harried look on Steve’s face. He’s always racing from one thing to the next. Between his classes, the work he does on the school paper, and his job at the diner, Tony doesn’t get to see his roommate nearly as much as he’d like. “Want me to save you food?”

Steve ducks his head. “Only if you’re ordering for you. Or you have extra or something. You don’t have to worry about me,” he adds.

“Save food for Steve,” Tony quips. “Got it.”

Before Steve can deliver whatever argument he has at the ready, Tony looks shoos Steve out the door with the reminder that he’d be late if he didn’t leave right now.

In the meantime, Tony works on some actual classwork, and decides to wait to order his burrito until closer to the time Steve gets done. It’s a win-win, really. Steve needs to eat and Tony hates eating alone. He’d forego the activity entirely, but Rhodey frowned on that kind of behavior. So, come to think of it, did Steve, the hypocrite.

By the time Steve gets in, Tony’s only just taking two overstuffed burritos out of a brown bag and setting them on the coffee table.

“Welcome home, Steven. You look marginally more awake tonight,” Tony notes. “No robots this time, but I do have burritos, and a movie if I can interest you in that?”

Steve does look less rundown tonight than he did last week, though he still seems to sigh in relief at the sight before him, like he wants nothing more than to relax with Tony and a movie. Tony, for his part, tries to remind himself that it’s probably more the food and relaxing he wants more than Tony, but surely that’s at least part of it, right?

“You didn’t have to wait for me, Tony really, I could’ve just heated something up.”

Tony just hands him a plate. “Veggie, right? Brown rice?”

Steve looks like he wants to argue, to continue insisting that Tony didn’t have to wait up or buy him dinner, but his eyes give him away, softening just a little at the thoughtfulness.

“Yeah, perfect,” Steve says. “Thanks, Tony.”

“Good. I was doing homework anyway, so really, don’t worry about it,” Tony says, nudging Steve over on the couch. “You can get the next one, how’s that? I know it’ll help you sleep tonight.”

Steve just huffs a laugh, nodding before he asks what Tony has in mind to watch. He shifts over just enough so that they’re sitting side by side on the couch, hardly any room between them. But since Steve doesn’t seem to mind, Tony certainly won’t call attention to it. Instead, he flips through Netflix until they find something mostly mindless. It’s soothing in a way Tony can’t give a name to, being here with Steve like this, and he feels his own eyes start to grow heavy as the night wears on, plates forgotten and Steve warm and solid beside him.

*

“It’s my turn,” Steve says one night a few weeks later. He had an earlier shift, so it’s just after dinner time when he gets home from work. His hair is in its typical post-shift disarray, and, Tony realizes, he’s managed to shrink his uniform shirt in the finicky basement dryer. It’s nothing excessive, probably not even enough for anyone but Tony to notice, but he has to look away; it’s almost too endearing, that little strip of bare skin, even for him.

“Your turn to do the dishes?” Tony asks hopefully, eyeing the growing pile in the sink.

“No, that’s all you, sorry. Didn’t you finish your cleaning robot? Or did you realize Roombas already exist?” Steve teases.

“Not yet. And it’s not a Roomba, thank you very much. Hopefully he’ll be done soon, though. Anyway, if it’s not the dishes, what’s it your turn for?”

Steve lifts up a bag from the diner. “To do something nice. You know those chocolate peanut butter pies you love so much?”

Tony’s mouth waters at the thought. “Yes. Steven Grant Rogers, are you telling me, in that bag—”

Steve grins, holding up said pie. “My supervisor loves me for all the extra shifts I’ve been willing to pick up lately, so she might have put this aside when I mentioned how much I love them.”

“I could kiss you,” Tony says, a startlingly honest proclamation, but one he figures Steve would be able to overlook in the face of said pie. Instead, Steve’s face flushes a bright, splotchy pink, and he busies himself getting forks and napkins before he lets himself look back at Tony, smiling .

“Pie and a movie before I resign myself to a weekend of studying?”

And sure, maybe it’s just because Steve feels like he owes him something for picking up dinner sometimes, but Tony still can’t help the flutter of giddy excitement that flips through him when Steve takes his familiar spot beside him on the couch, smiling like he can’t believe his own good luck.

*

The next few weeks pass, a flurry of homework and exams, and a completed robot that does not do the dishes so much as douse their entire kitchen in water. Steve finds this very funny, and loves to remind Tony just how many dishes he could have done in the time he spent on DUM-E. Amid all of this, though, there have been countless meals eaten together on their couch, one more smuggled pie, and too many close calls between Tony and his feelings for Steve to count.

They probably could have gone on like this, making time for each other, watching shitty comedies and taking turns buying cheap meals, and Tony would have been happy for that. He’s happy with any time he gets to spend with Steve, but… he also feels like he might burst at the seams one of these nights, pressed in close to Steve on the couch, talking about everything and nothing and wondering himself dizzy. There are so many _what ifs_ , so many ways to ruin their friendship, not to mention their living situation, but Tony is almost positive he’s not dreaming up the soft, wondering looks he finds Steve giving him sometimes. And really, no one needs to spend that many late nights watching bad TV with their roommate.

It’s a Wednesday evening like any other when it comes to a head. Steve is about to leave for work, another late shift that’ll leave him bleary-eyed and asleep on Tony’s shoulder when he gets home. He tells Tony he doesn’t have to wait up, and Tony shakes his head. He has to say something because that’s the whole problem, isn’t it? He’ll always want to wait up, just like he’ll always want to wait for Steve to eat.

“Hey, Steve,” Tony says, suddenly determined. It’s now or never, really.

“We should go to dinner, one of these nights. When you’re not working. Somewhere nice, outside of here, I mean.” His heart hammers in his chest but at least he said it. That’s half the battle.

Steve pauses. He could say any number of things to let Tony down gently, but instead, Tony watches his face light up in a smile, his cheeks turning a delicate shade of pink.

“Yeah? I’d like that,” Steve says, blue eyes finding Tony’s and holding steady.

“Yeah,” Tony repeats, nodding far too many times. “Okay, good.” He knows he’s beaming like a fool, and hates that he has to let Steve go for nearly eight hours, but he figures it’s for the best. He’d need all those hours to come up with something truly great for the two of them. “It’s a date then.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm omg-just-peachy on tumblr, come say hi!


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